


for the time of youth was fled

by contrarian



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Angst, But light angst, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Highly dubious pretext for Jane sharing, Hurt/Comfort, Season/Series 03, drugs as a plot device, implied/ referenced Lisbon's awful childhood, what do you mean that doesn't make sense?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-28 05:56:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7627726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/contrarian/pseuds/contrarian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He never talked about his past. It seemed like manipulation, in a way, but what harm could just listening do?</p><p>This whole situation was his fault, anyway.</p><p> </p><p>Set sometime post Cackle-Bladder Blood. A little exploration of some personal headcanons in the frame of a questionable case related incident.</p>
            </blockquote>





	for the time of youth was fled

"You remember the whole thing with Danny, Lisbon?"

"Sure. It was only two weeks ago, Jane."

Lisbon sighed. Once again, she and Jane were mired in the consequences of his half-cocked, idiotic decisions, and this time, there wasn't even the assurance of catching the CBI flavour of the day, violent-criminal-turned-local-musician-turned-extortionist Hansen Ashley. So, he'd spun some bullshit about Ashley not being home, being headed to an old warehouse where there was already a team from the local PD waiting to grab the guy, and he had assured her they could pick up some proof from his house before wrapping up, and so here they were.

They- or rather, he- hadn't counted on this guy's brother being in, trying to clean out Ashley's stolen money before making a break for Brazil, or who the hell knew. Jane had sauntered into the basement, followed by a vaguely exasperated Lisbon. She had started searching towards the far end- it was a weirdly big place- and then there's a warning shout from Jane, a pain in the back of her head, she made a quick mental promise to shoot him if she lived, and everything went dark.

She woke up (thankfully) to realise they were locked in the basement of a large house in the middle of nowhere, with no cell signal, and probably quite a while before Cho and Rigsby considered the four hour drive to come and look for them. She spotted Jane though, sat with a _cup of tea!?!_ so at least there was that. Huh. The smell of a dead Jane versus the chatter of a live one was a decision she was glad she didn't have to make.

"Jane!" she hissed. "Did you find that down here? Do you even know what's in it?"

Come to think, he was looking a bit out of it. She got up from where her unconscious figure had been arranged by a wall, before heavily sitting down again. Damn head injuries.

"Careful there, Lisbon. Anyway, we weren't in any danger. The brother isn't a criminal, he just wanted the cash, panicked. He wasn't about to kill us."

She grimaced. "Could you not have stopped him, in that case?"

He just gave her a look, like, _what? physically stop an actual person?_ Bloody infuriating man.

"I was busy!" he gestured with the mug. "I don't feel too good now, though."

Lisbon just rolled her eyes.

 

And here they were.

"I could tell, you know."

"What could you tell, Jane?" Her voice was sharp. Maybe getting knocked unconscious had made her grumpy.

"You were really curious! I saw the look on your face when I was talking to Paul, you're interested in my history, you just don't want to ask. That would be like-" he cocked his head "-giving up the upper hand." He grinned rather goofily.

Lisbon honestly couldn't tell whether this was regular Jane crazy or something more sinister. She chose to ignore his other, accurate comments, at least for the moment. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Sure, I feel great! Just, I don't know. Lightheaded. The tea didn't taste right."

He sounded so flippant. Lisbon shut her eyes.

"This brother, Roy Ashley, right? Probably brought something in case Han was still here, maybe to lower his inhibitions, get him talking about this money. He's long gone though, of course."

"Didn't you figure out that he was going to come, or something?"

"I guess I didn't think about it. Roy's only crime is being a bit greedy, I never really took him for a malicious sort."

"Oh, he didn't _think_ about it, okay, sure, no problem. What harm has not _thinking_ ever done?"

Jane gave her an expression about equivalent to a pout. "It's alright, your guys will have arrested the person we really need."

"I guess it's all fine then." Lisbon muttered. She checked her phone. _Still no damn signal._ It was starting to look like this might be a long afternoon.

"You want to hear about the deal with Danny? We grew up together, obviously. Might fill the time."

Lisbon's mind stalled. Did she _want_ to? Sure, knowing Jane, it had to be a great story, and yeah. She was curious. A young Jane must have been a sight to behold. He never talked about his past. It seemed like manipulation, in a way, but what harm could just listening do?

This whole situation was his fault, anyway.

"Go for it. Jane, 14, with the cynicism of a 40 year old, I'm picturing it right now." She winced at the twinge in her head.

He got up at that, and staggered over, sat down next to her on the floor. "I actually wasn't a cynical kid!"

"Really? Boy Wonder Patrick Jane, conning people as soon as he could talk, was an idealist as a boy?"

He gave her a thoughtful look. "You know, as a teen, you're trying to figure out a worldview. You learn some truths, take some knocks, and think you're a cynic, but really you're an optimist. You think everything will work out, you just do it right. 'Fix' it. I'm willing to bet you know exactly what I'm talking about."

Lisbon paused to think. Yeah, she understood. Dealing with her father, and then with his suicide, had made her world weary and bitter far too young. But once she had matured, she realised that on some level she did have faith that things could get better, or that she could make things better, and she had never actually lost that core of optimism, and it fueled her, as a cop. Well, along with a healthy amount of rage. Haha.

It had always been clear that Jane was a cynic, through and through, and it was something she had assumed came from growing up taking advantage of people for money, or else starting there and being compounded by Red John. She hadn't really devoted that much time to it. It would explain why he left that life as a young man though, if he was still an optimist at heart, but that begged the question- what was going through Jane's mind as a fake psychic? The ego, and maybe the money, she would have guessed, at least before this conversation. But there was an inbetween- leaving the show, an optimist. Then, conning vulnerable people out of thousands. Selling false hope for a generous living. _What was it?_

She turned to look at him, and he was already watching her with interest.

"Angela felt the same way. We hated it." His voice had dropped a little. He stared out. "Either with the show, or a mark, you know? What was so bad about normal people? We had, ah. Occasionally dropped into school, for a laugh maybe, and we liked it. It was strange, when not every conversation was a negotiation, or trying to get one over someone, although we did a lot of that." He gave her a sly smile.

Lisbon could well imagine the trouble a young Jane and a woman wild enough to catch his heart could cause at state schools. And she understood where he was coming from, in a way. She understood the jealousy of seeing people who didn't have to have an ulterior motive, who weren't lying to survive. Her teen years had been taken from her, trying to protect her brothers, trying to keep the family together, if not whole. It had taken her a lot of years to let go of the responsibility she felt when it all broke apart. Some things she couldn't fix, and sometimes she wished she had learned that before it was too late.

"Wait- you didn't go to school at all?" It should have been obvious, Lisbon realised, upon brief reflection. It just... hadn't occurred to her. Jane was a master of the 'educated eccentric' gimmick. You would never guess he had, at one time or another, lived firmly in the real world.

He grinned again. "Nah. Busy earning my keep." His expression soured. A brief expression of confusion came across his face, disappeared. "Wow, these drugs are really good for oversharing. I'm probably going to be at least a little bit annoyed when I can think straight."

"Hm." Lisbon was already doing some busy mental filing. She still needed the gap filled between young idealist and selling his soul to daytime TV, though.

Again, she felt briefly uncomfortable, but brushed it aside. Jane invaded privacy for a day job, she was barely scratching the surface.

She took the plunge. "So how did you end up in the psychic business in the end, anyway?"

Jane's expression darkened. He looked at his hands.

Screw it, Lisbon felt guilty.

"When Angela and I left," he began heavily. "I was sixteen, she was nearly 18."

Lisbon frowned. That was... _really young_.

He let out a humourless chuckle. "Yeah. Your options are pretty limited when you can't go back home, you have no formal qualifications, and you're underage for everything ordinary people do. You do what you have to, don't you?" He looked at her. She looked back, steadily, and he turned away. "I wasn't always so good at rigging card games. Plus, you know, couldn't get into reputable casinos. We met some unsavoury characters."

A silence fell. Jane didn't look at her, but spoke again, quietly. "Angie was gonna do it, you know. She was already stripping to keep us off the street. It would just be one more step..."

Lisbon's heart seemed to stop in her chest.

"It didn't come to that. I... it worked out. We survived, we hit legal age, I started making real money from cards and the psychic thing. I couldn't do much normal and honest work, I realised, not like I'd always wanted, but she could do it. She worked in a music shop at first, counter, later even lessons. She loved it. And I got a real thrill from my business- I was indulging the oldest, worst parts of myself. But I knew that everything was fragile, and I knew I wasn't going to let _anything_ like that _ever_ happen to us again."

Lisbon only heard him this serious when he was talking about Red John. It was sometimes so hard to imagine that he had a darker side, a determined, driven side, but it was there, and frankly, the contrast scared her. It made her wonder how well she knew him, and she hated that he was still unpredictable to her, even after all this time.

"Yeah, she wanted me stop. We had enough, she said. But as I said, the whole thing flattered me. And I thought it was too late. What else can I _do_ Angie? What can I do? Not that, she said. Not any more."

Lisbon couldn't reply. That... did really explain a lot.

He had left the life he hated, thinking that with his grace and easy charm, he could make it work, with a girl he loved, both too naive to fully understand the problems in front of them. And when both of them found out, it was too late. They were too proud, and maybe too blind to go back. But it was enough, for Patrick at least, to decide that the world was at bottom something to be distrusted. Something to be manipulated, or be manipulated by.

"You know," he seemed to break out of his reverie, but his cheery grin seemed brittle. "We were going to get some marriage counselling." His grin widened. "We were worried about our codependency issues." He scratched the back of his head absently. "It's all fucking ironic, really."

Yeah, codependency issues. She could see that. How could they avoid it, childhood, hell, and final marital bliss all spent relying on each other? It was so rare that she got to armchair analyse Jane, and she would make the most if it now, damn it.

Lisbon found her voice. She raised an eyebrow. "Ironic?" She also hadn't really heard him swear before, but perhaps that was just another part of his silly, childish, harmless mask.

"It's funny," he started, absently, "she'd come home and say 'the girls say you're charming, but a serial womaniser. The boys say they'd show me how much they appreciate me' and I'd say 'the boys tell me you're cold and haughty, manipulative. The girls tell me they'd be warm, always willing, always obedient'. And we'd laugh. We were superficial people, our 'friends' were utilities or for show. We were the only ones who really knew each other, seen each other at breaking point- she thought that was unhealthy, but it was how it had always been." She gave him a sidelong glance, which he didn't return.

He shrugged. Silence fell. That head injury was making sleep pretty attractive- she had already dozed off once or twice, but she didn't want to be out cold when the team showed up. Professional pride.

Jane spoke again, and she jumped.

"Those were some weird drugs, Lisbon."

"Uh huh, didn't anyone teach you you should drink strange tea?"

He grinned, dazzling, shrugged.

She started to laugh helplessly, and he joined in, until they both stopped, breathless. Something in the air between them had cleared, and they sat in comfortable silence, broken only by the occasional wry comment or silly anecdote.

At length, they heard crashes above them. "That'll be Rigsby," Jane murmured. Lisbon elbowed him, and he yelped indignantly. But the door did come flying open, and it was indeed Rigsby, Van Pelt close on his heels. Cho brought up the rear.

"Behold, the three musketeers." Jane sprang to his feet. "Lisbon got a nasty knock. She's okay though. I got drugged, please don't listen to anything I say about myself, except that I am actually really hungry right now." He eyed Rigsby, who put his firearm away and held up his hands.

"I regret ever being worried." Cho stated blandly, lowering his gun. Grace and Rigsby shared a look. Lisbon stood up, walked over carefully.

"Thank God you're here." She gestured at Jane, who pouted.

"What? I love having the whole gang!" He put on a deeper voice. "We're getting the band back together!"

Rigsby looked at Cho. "Is he quoting The Blues Brothers?"

"I wouldn't know. But it doesn't make sense."

Jane looked wounded.

Lisbon shook her head, and pushed past them and out to the door, watching the setting of the warm evening sun.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it guys :)  
> It's been a real while since I've watched the show, to be honest, but here we are. This was shorter than I would have liked, since I have a lot more of a fleshed out idea of most of the stuff I've referenced, but even with the bs I cooked up, I didn't think I could get away with getting Jane to really go into detail -_-
> 
> I'm also weirdly attracted to the idea of mob!jane, I think it would be a real laugh. I think I can come up with a better pretext for it coming up than drugs though! If you're thinking of dropping a comment, do you think that would work better as an AU or just discreetly worked into the canon? I don't know, an AU would give me more space to go a bit OOC...
> 
> Comments are, as always, highly appreciated xx
> 
> Title from The Angel, Blake. Yeah, yeah, Blake, I know, but I love shows with running poetry references, it makes picking titles that much easier :)
> 
> 'Soon my Angel came again;  
> I was armed, he came in vain;  
> For the time of youth was fled,  
> And grey hairs were on my head.'


End file.
